There’s $19 million left on a contract due to expire at the end of 2015. He signed the five year, $62 million deal with the Braves after his explosive 2010 season in Miami.

So what went wrong?

Actually, that should be ‘what went right in 2010?’

Here, kids, is a lesson on what hitters can control. They have influence over vectors of batted balls, both in terms of height (fly, line or ground balls) and direction (pulled, opposite field). Not complete, but some.

Uggla’s put up a career .285 BABIP. In other words, when he makes contact, he’s avoiding outs 28.5 per cent of the time. That’s pretty decent. The thing, of course, is how often does he swing the bat and what is he trying to do with his contact?

But it also seems he’s a below-average hitter on pitches in the zone. (In 2013, Brisbee notes, he made contact with 75 per cent of pitches in the zone, against a league average of 87 per cent.)

When Uggla swings, he’s swinging for the fences.

He’s shown consistent power since reaching the majors in 2006, raking 233 homers in 8+ seasons.

Let’s focus in on that 2010 season. He hit .287/.369/.508 and belted 33 homers. The home run total wasn’t far off what he’d managed to that point in his career – in fact he hit 36 his first season in Atlanta – but his BABIP in 2010 is the big, fat note here: .330, the best of his career.

He still had a solid season in 2011, getting a fair amount of power despite a below-career-average .253 BABIP.

But then it all started falling apart in 2012. He started popping up more balls (the trend actually began in 2011). Why, you ask? Brooks Baseball gives us a clue: he struggles on hitting offspeed pitches. And, surprise-surprise, he’s seen fewer fastballs since 2011.

The moral: Dan Uggla can control the ball when he sees fastballs. If he can’t, he’s done.

Director of team travel Mickey Morabito gave Kazmir the phone numbers for everything, including the bus scheduled to meet their charter at the airport in Minneapolis on Sunday evening.

There’s two angles on this: 1. Billy Beane figures his players are adult enough to be able to handle a three-day trip. And he’s got some notion of how journalism works; 2. A’s owner Lew Wolff doesn’t really care about his team and pinches his pennies so tight, this is what you get.

Given the on-going brouhaha about the team’s lease at decrepit O.co Coliseum (there’s a vote on Wednesday to secure the team there for another decade), most are taking the latter tack. As a journalist who has to deal with sometimes aggravatingly tight-lipped sports teams, I’d like to believe it’s the former. That would be refreshing. We’ve landed in a world where every comment is managed for fear of spin. Of course, the spin happens anyway. That’s why I’d like to believe this is a case of Beane saying, ‘who really cares in the end, what they want to write gets written anyway.’

These are all outfielders who once were useful for your fantasy league team. There wasn’t much reason to think they wouldn’t continue to be this year.

Now you see them, idling on the waiver wire of your league. It feels weird to see them there. These were guys who once had a big role – both in real life and in the lives of their fantasy obsessives.

Sport is cruel. It bestows a select few of us with immense talent. Even fewer find a way to channel those talents, taking them to the very top.

Then decline, rust, whatever you call it, sets in. The fantasy owner knows it, before the big leaguers do. Then again, when you’re the Phillies and you have the chance to take a flyer on a aged flyer like Sizemore – why not? It’s pointless for a fantasy GM, chasing a few extra roto points.

Why does the body break down? It’s hardly fair.

Andre Either is just 32. He was never blessed with power, but he hit well and played a good right field (good enough that he morphed into a centre fielder, actually). In 2013 he slashed 272/360/423, giving him an OPS+ of 121, just off his career number of 122. At the All Star break, he’s hitting 252/314/376. It’s a touch out of the ordinary. He’s actually just the guy you might want to take a flyer on, since his history suggests a strong chance of big(ish) second half. But that also depends on him getting playing time.

Jason Kubel is also 32. Last year was a disaster for him (216/293/317) but given the year before that, he hit 253/327/506 while mashing 30 home runs it was a good bet he’d bounce back to the slightly above-average performance he’d always had. His big 2012 was an OPS+ of 120; last year was a comical 69. His return to Minnesota, the site of his greatest consistency, was a good thing, you’d have thought.

But the Twins gave up on him last month. They offered him time in AAA to sort out his trouble but he said no thanks. No other MLB team was interested. It’s somewhat shocking to discover how little his exit from the majors garnered – there’s just a handful of articles noting his release. You look at his numbers and all you see is a flat-out inability to make contact.

And then there’s Grady Sizemore. Once upon a time, he was an MVP tout. Like Kubel and Ethier, he’s a 1982 birthday. He’s 32 in August. He’s a three-time all star, who, at age 25, looked like he had a good chance of being a hall of famer: he had speed, he could hit and he could hit for power. In 2008, he hit 268/374/502. That was his lowest average to date, but given everything else (33 homers 38 steals), it was alright.

So, will he ever be the same? No. Can he contribute? Seems hard to see for this season – he’s got to prove that he can play at all. But don’t look away completely.

Sport, no matter the flavour, does violent things to the body. The best have to stay the best.

But it all reminds me of that great finish to Patton, with words that are claimed to him but we’re not quite sure where they come from. But they’re good words nonetheless. They’re guiding words.

For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade.
In the procession came trumpeteers, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments.
The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses.
A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.

An INFIELD FLY is a fair fly ball (not including a line drive nor an attempted bunt) which can be caught by an infielder with ordinary effort, when first and second, or first, second and third bases are occupied, before two are out. The pitcher, catcher and any outfielder who stations himself in the infield on the play shall be considered infielders for the purpose of this rule.